A Blog Aimed at Defusing the Bombast

February 25, 2018

Simple Solutions - The 'No-Buy' List and Nuisance Law

My own thoughts for solutions to the problems posed by automatic weapons involve two simple elements, implementable tomorrow in one case, in a half-year in the other.

(1) You create a 'no-buy' list something like the no-fly list, which you can end up at the drop of a hat. It;s a simple, one-click database, available to any gun dealer. A psychiatrist's warning, commitment, expulsion from school, dishonorable discharge, felony (of course), accessing suspect websites (Islamic, White supremacy, Black nationalism, etc.) - almost anything gets you on it, accept an anonymous tip - that's too much. If you feel it's unfair, you can have a hearing, a la no-fly. This gets some resistance from the NRA, but not that much, as it is already committed to back-ground checks. The real resistance comes from the Luddite/Snowden admirers, because this does involve utilization of ALL the public information available.

(2) The second is to treat these weapons as potential public nuisances, subject to civil abatement with cause. As with anything dangerous, the State can require a purchaser to take safety classes, pass a test, and so on. Since the NRA would love to conduct such classes, there is a silver lining for it. The requirement forces a buyer to socialize to some extent with other owners; it also requires the owner to meet with someone with authority and background. (Most of these guys are extremely anti-social - forcing them into class draws that out.) If you fail the test or course, you lose your right to own an automatic weapon, and it's confiscated.

Also, buy more than one of these things and the household is subject to a civic inspection for certainty that it is in compliance with all safety requirements - including no members of the household on the 'no buy' list. You may be fine and upright, but if you want to house dangerous weapons in the same residence as your creepy son . . . no way.

This change may seem like a big deal, but it's not. There is such a thing as an administrative warrant, which is what the State uses to insure compliance with building codes, health regulations, and the like. When I installed a heat pump in place of my gas heating, a building inspector showed up to be sure it was in compliance. Had I refused him entrance, he could have obtained a warrant to make the inspection. It's that sort of thing. Society is not required to trust the good faith with respect to the safety of dangerous weapons, to some nutty mother with her malignant autistic son in the same house. You don't have to with poisonous reptiles and you don't have to with arsenals. We can require an arsenal holder to insure that the weapons are safely stored, require inspection to be sure, and abate the nuisance - require removal - if they are not.

Those two measures would ha e prevented EVERY one of these mass killings except one (Las Vegas, where the killer took extraordinary measures to fly under radar). These crimes are all committed by social misfits, loners, outsiders, or morbid kids. They are all committed with spanking new weapons, since none of the perpetrators has the social skills to locate an underground dealer and very rarely the mechanical skills to fix up a second-hand weapon. (Besides, who wants to trust your moment of glory to some schlock piece of weaponry?) Since these are all exercises in self glorification, there is almost always a public expression of hostility, enough to get you on a no-buy list.

The first of my thoughts is a no-brainer. The second would require some politicking, until the analogy to building codes, people who own dangerous pets, and so on is made clear. Throwing the NRA a carrot doesn't hurt. Both accept the on-going sales and legitimacy of assault weapons, which I don't like, but which is another carrot. Both seem to me achievable. Both are in the spirit of Atul Gawande's marvellous book 'Better' - not to look for a complete solution at this time, but simply means and methods of bettering it.

This is what might be accomplished if we talked of the issue in calm voices as a problem with solutions. What we prefer, however, is to damn gun owners as redneck racist cretins, indifferent to mass murder - which inevitably brings counter accusations of gungrabber and cultural elitist. It is amazing to me that people who use these tragedies as opportunities to emphasize their own smug moral superiority do not realize that they are not contributing anything to solving the problem.